Andy’s Apiary Adventures

02/14/2025

❤️ HappBee Valentine’s Day!
Spend time with your Honey 🍯

02/14/2025

🐝 Hello Bee Fans, Honey Fans, Andy Fans, whatever may have brought you here! It’s been a quiet winter, but Andy has still been tending to his hives as needed. We lost hive Evelyn this winter, we thought it was super strong and would thrive so it was a sad surprise. Bee life can change suddenly and be cruel. That’s why we’re here to help manage and help to give them every chance! We have big plans for this year…bee cooperation pending 😂. We will be expanding our Apiary, planning on splitting several of our existing hives before swarm season to create new colony’s. We will be placing those and the new colony’s we will be obtaining on our existing locations and a couple of new farm locations! We are very excited about these as there will be an abundance of bee favorite trees & vegetation nearby and of course farm crops. We are glad in our endeavors to also help our local farmers thrive. Stay tuned for more news! 🐝🍯👑 🌾🚜👨🏻‍🌾

12/01/2024

Did the follow up Oxalic acid v***rization treatment on all my hives today. Things are looking good and the ladies are ready to overwinter. I’ll be giving them winter feed soon. 🐝🐝

11/24/2024

Oxalic acid v***rization is a treatment of beehives to eliminate varroa mites. Oxalic acid v***r is evenly distributed throughout the hive, where it settles on surfaces and kills mites that come into contact with it. The v***r lingers for a few days. This treatment is best used in late fall or winter when there is less brood in the colony. Vaporization is faster and easier than dribbling oxalic acid directly onto the bees. It can also be applied without opening the hive, which can be important in cold weather. Oxalic acid is harmful to humans and can be harmful to bees in high quantities. However, it is a naturally occurring substance and can be in the environment; it’s found in plants, taro, and beets for example. Beekeepers must use a respirator to avoid inhaling the fumes. I treated my backyard hive today (photo), then went over to our friends farm to help them with the treatment they needed to do since they didn’t have the right mask filter this time around. Our friends gifted us with 2 head of purple cauliflower and a rosemary tree. Thank you Produce Paradise Dawn Nicole & Ernie. The Beekeeping community is a great thing! 🍯🐝

11/23/2024

We're looking for next year's NJ Honey Ambassador! 🐝🍯

Are you a young adult in NJ who loves honey and is passionate about beekeeping? Do you enjoy sharing your enthusiasm with the public? Apply now to become our 2025 New Jersey Honey Ambassador. This volunteer role serves to educate others, promote the honey industry, and create awareness around the importance of honey bees to the general public and consumers.. Responsibilities include speaking engagements at schools, festivals, and media interviews, as well as creating social media content and participating in hands-on beekeeping activities.

The New Jersey Honey Ambassador represents the New Jersey Beekeepers Association and serves as the official spokesperson for the honey and beekeeping industry in the state. The primary mission of this role is to advocate for the consumption of honey and highlight the critical importance of honeybees to agriculture and the environment.

The Honey Ambassador works statewide, traveling to schools, civic organizations, fairs, festivals, and farmers markets to educate the public about the vital role honeybees play in pollination and food production. Through engaging presentations and outreach efforts, the Ambassador helps foster a deeper understanding of beekeeping, honey production, and the challenges facing pollinators.

A key responsibility of the Honey Ambassador is to drive media awareness by participating in interviews and features across various platforms, including radio, television, podcasts, newspapers, and social media. The Ambassador is also tasked with creating and sharing timely, relevant content to further expand consumer awareness and engagement through digital channels.

In addition to education and advocacy, the position includes building relationships with community leaders, organizations, and other stakeholders to strengthen the honeybee and beekeeping industry in New Jersey.

If you're interested in this exciting role, please reach out to the NJ Honey Ambassador Coordinator at [email protected] with any questions.

Application Requirements: Position Duration: Jan 2025 to Jan 2026. Young adults (18-25 years old by January 2025) who are residents of New Jersey are eligible to apply. To apply, candidates should submit an essay explaining why they should be selected as the 2025 Honey Ambassador. Essays can be sent to [email protected]. The deadline for applications is Dec 31, 2024.

New Jersey FFA Association RCE New Jersey 4-H Rutgers Cooperative Extension Central Jersey Beekeepers Association Northwest New Jersey Beekeepers Association Sussex County Beekeepers Association

11/04/2024

Inspected my hives and added feed for the ladies today. 🐝

10/20/2024

🐝 Beeducation 🍯
Central Jersey Beekeepers Association

10/19/2024

When you’re trying to enjoy your tea with honey in between the yard work. but the ladies really want their honey back. “How do I get in this thing!?” 🐝🍯☕️

09/21/2024

Went to the Central Jersey Beekeepers Association meeting tonight. Very interesting to hear Grant Stiles and others talk. Super excited to find out from another beekeeper about the Hives for Hero’s program which beekeepers can sign up for to mentor Active Duty Military & Veterans and First Responders. Maybe one day Andy I can sign up to mentor someone when he fully gets back on his feet has a bit more experience on his. Took a pic of fellow beekeeper friends Dawn & Ern, but didn’t take a picture of us of course lol

08/22/2024

It was a great time 🐝

08/17/2024

Today, on National Honey Bee Day, we went to The New Jersey Beekeepers AssociationAnnual Auction & Picnic. Some local beekeeping legends here! The new NJ Honey Queen was crowned. Andy got some good used boxes and equipment deals. Won some boxes painted by a 4H group, so happy to help support them as well. And I got a jar of Schuler’s Chocolate Creamed Honey! very interested to taste it. Local beekeepers supporting local beekeepers! 🐝🍯💛 Central Jersey Beekeepers Association

08/05/2024

🍯 HONEY! We have been behind on posting updates. We had a very small harvest this year. Most of what we had has already sold, fast! We only have 4 - 8oz bottles left at $12 each. 100% Natural Raw Local Hamilton Honey! If you would like to buy one let us know. Peach for scale.

07/18/2024

Hi Bee Friends ! 🐝 More Bee/Honey pics coming soon… Bees and all that go with it is Andy’s passion project. My wife Janine’s passion is dogs! She’s on the Board of Directors for The Canine Condition Foundation. TCCF help families spay and neuter their pets to help keep them in the home instead of in a shelter and also to eliminate unwanted litters adding to the homeless dog plight. IT’S TCCF’s FIRST ANNIVERSARY!! I'm asking you to consider making a donation of any amount - no amount is too small - as they have a donor willing to match the first $5,000 raised which would be huge in helping continue the mission. You can donate directly on TCCF website https://thecaninecondition.org/donation/ or the other methods listed there. Read more about them and what they do while you’re there. AND you can check out the docuseries on YouTube that started it all! Link in comments.

Thanks so much for your support 🐶❤️

Ways to Donate Click Below Venmo Credit Card https://pay.THECANINECONDITION.ORG PayPal Zelle [email protected] We sincerely thank you for donating to The Canine Condition Foundation. Your generosity will help us prevent homeless pet overpopulation, promot...

06/27/2024

🐝 bees will clean their sisters to help save them, this is true. Life lesson for us all.

My dad has bees.Today I went to his house and he showed me all of the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off of a 5 gallon bucket full of honey and on top of the honey there were 3 little bees, struggling. They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them and he said he was sure they wouldn't survive. Casualties of honey collection I suppose.
I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly, after all he was the one who taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty Chobani yogurt container and put the plastic container outside.
Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey collection, there were bees flying all over outside.
We put the 3 little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate. My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all of their sisters (all of the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly dead bees, helping them to get all of the honey off of their bodies. We came back a short time later and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters.
When it was time for me to leave we checked one last time and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away and the container was empty.
Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown in their own stickiness and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free.
Bee Sisters. Bee Peers. Bee Teammates.
We could all learn a thing or two from these bees.
Bee kind always.~
~author credit goes to bonnie ellen netzly 🥰
art: Autumn Skye Morrison

06/09/2024

More updates on our South Jersey Apiary (pics from today 6/8)

🐝 I did not see her majesty in FreeBeez yesterday 6/7, the colony is calm and in good shape. There is very little drawn out comb, only on a couple frames of the second deep brood box. Saw a little bit of eggs in the open comb and decided that I need to feed this hive again. Today 6/8 I drove back down and added their liquid feed.

🐝 Evelyn is calm and in good condition. There was lots of honey and pollen in this hive. Every frame had honey on it even if it was just a little. The 3 frames that had brood on them were in a tight and solid pattern. Eggs and larva were also seen on some frames. Evelyn’s hive does not need to be fed any longer. I will put a honey super on it tomorrow. Today 6/8 I added the honey super.

🐝 short update on DeezBeez. There is an abundance of eggs laid! While I was tending to the other hives I also added liquid feed for these ladies and added a second deep brood box.

06/08/2024

After so many swarms in the early Spring, one of our home Hamilton hives Beeatrice has been decidedly queenless. Not sure what happened to the lady, I suppose the new young queen left in the established hive couldn’t figure out her job and didn’t make it. Or the old Queen was left in the hive and possibly died without a good successor. I’ve monitored for a few weeks in case it took the workers longer to make a Queen or she took longer to get the hang of it, but alas no. I had to order a mated Queen to replace her with. Yesterday, 6/7/24, she arrived, I installed her and her attendants into Beeatrice. She is a Saskatraz queen marked green. Knowing the size of a bee, this little box she arrived in is about 3 inches long. The white area is sugar for the attendants to eat. We add a bit of water on the grid for the ladies to drink and eat the sugar with. Her attendants feed her their own Royal jelly, as the Queen is not capable of feeding herself. Hoping all goes well, that the existing hive ladies accept her as the new Queen Beeatrice to rule their colony. The box was put in the hive. The attendants will eat a small sugar plug from inside and the existing bees will eat the sugar plug from the other side to release the queen on their own. 👑🐝🤞🏼

06/02/2024

South Jersey Apiary update

From right to left,
🐝Evelyn is rocking faster than I would have expected. I placed the second deep box on this hive on May 25th and 6 days later the ladies have drawn out comb (all of that white wax is the ladies hard work) and the queen is laying on at least 6 frames with some capped brood, lots of eggs and small larva which can be seen in the pics of the frame (zoom in) as well as her majesty if you can spot her.
🐝Free Beez in the middle, with the one green deep box, is the captured swarm from our back yard apiary is doing very well also, and got a second deep brood box with 10 frames ready to be drawn out.
🐝Deez Beez on the left is still queenless as of Friday. I bought this as a nucleus colony from local bee keeper in the Burlington/ Roebling NJ area who I will never do business with ever again (if you want to know their name msg me and I’ll give it to you that way). All the hives still have top feeders on them until they no longer need them.

Go Ladies Go! Fill those frames with Honey!!
🐝🍯👑

05/25/2024

Evelyn is doing so well that she needs more room already with 80% of the deep box filled out. They’re making room on top of the frames by making burr comb to store honey. So she needs a second deep box. Installed yesterday.

Now with the addition of a swarm caught from either Beeatrice or Cecilia, “FreeBeez” in the middle, there are now 3 hives in our second Apiary location at Browns Mills placed today. All three hives have top feeders with bee food on them to help them draw out more comb and become stronger hives. Since we’re in the nectar flow, I shouldn’t have to feed them again until possibly late summer/early Autumn.
🐝🍯👑